Using Prominent Personalities With Identifiable Social Causes to Stimulate Writing

Middle schoolers aren't too young to feel strongly about politics, social issues, consumer rights, or environmental problems. Demonstrate the first steps toward social change with a project about action-oriented writing. Eighth graders...

Who says that reading has to involve text? Use non-print texts, including videos, TED talks, and podcasts in your classroom to teach skills associated with nonfiction reading, including evaluating claims, finding main ideas, and...

An extensive portfolio project encourages your kids to reflect on their personalities with multiple writing assignments. From activities on extended metaphors to writing about an important day in their lives, kids explore the way they...

As part of their exploration of the American dream, class members examine primary source materials to compare immigrant experiences of those arriving early in our country's history to those arriving in the US after World War II. To...

Put together an English language arts unit on the six traits of writing with this helpful collection of resources. From fun songs to differentiated writing exercises reinforcing each of the traits, great ideas are provided for developing...

Shake it up! Shake your tablet to bring up a unique writing prompt for journaling or blogging with your class. Shake again and a new one appears. Prompts can come from different categories (sketches, scenes, texts, words, news) to help...

Essay drafts always have room for improvement. The narrator of an informative video highlights the main points in one of her topic sentences, each point in a different color, and then highlights the corresponding evidence for each main...

Seventh graders learn how various historic events can be portrayed in a variety of ways. The second and third days of an informative text unit reviews content-specific vocabulary before comparing and contrast the lives of Rosa Parks and...

In an argumentative essay, the introductory paragraph is the primary opportunity to get your readers' attention and tell them why the issue you are discussing is important. Demonstrate to your young writers how to construct an organized...

What is mightier: the pen or the sword? Scholars learn the power of persuasion through editorial writing. Complete with graphic organizers, rubrics, and an interview with an expert in the field, learners first explore what an editorial...